I never considered the idea that it was atypical, but I read full commit message text all the time. There are many different ways to drill down into a commit,

I never considered the idea that it was atypical, but I read full commit message text all the time. There are many different ways to drill down into a commit, and then read the entire commit once you know it's relevant. Even doing a simple git log, and then a searching for some keyword through every full commit message, can be useful.